The Air is not noted by Apple to be user upgradable. First priority should be the amount of memory...go for the most you can afford there. The mass storage can be augmented at home by an external hard drive, slower than the SSD but once started up and application is loaded you can have a lot of data stored for a fraction of the cost of the large SSD.

The i7 and 8 GB ram, yes...the 256 GB SSD may be a little small...are you using a similar setup now, and if so, how much space do you need? Do you really need the speed of the SSD for the Windows work and Logic work or could you get by with puting that on an external drive? Or at least the associated applications and just Win on the SSD? That way you still get the faster bootup but slower access to the applications and dats files.

I am using a similar setup now, but hardly ever do any editing on Logic which I do on my Mini (lots of RAM and storage). What is non-negotiable is being able to run Windows and also having at least 100GB to spare for future growth. I thinking through this, 256GB may be small and 500GB is what I should probably target. Howeve, this puts total cost well into the MacBook Pro range. Portability is an objective, but the cost seems prohibitive.

You are right, 256 GB does not leave you with much when one criterion is to have such a large future use space. The MBP is a fine machine, and it is upgradable by the user. So you can save some money on memory at the purchsae and install yourself for a fraction of the cost. And have much larger mass storage. You could spend some time at an Apple store or reseller and use both machines and see which feels like it would serve you the best.

It seems like you are putting more and more stuff in places other than the laptop. If you think this will continue in the future, you might be safe with the 256gb. I understand wanting at least 100gb to spare for future growth, but remember that what takes up the most space on computers is programs. Is it likely that you'll be getting any new, heavy-duty programs for this computer as compared to your Mini?

And while I'm in agreement wit the "better safe than sorry" logic of getting more HD--when thinking about cost, remember (1) this is SSD--that's not what you get with a Macbook Pro--in fact, if you want that with an MBP, you'll have to pay much, much more and (2) Portablity is rather like a view of the ocean. You can buy a cheaper house with more room, but you won't get that view. Same here. How key is the lightness of the computer? If it's very key, then either go with 256 and work around it (larger cloud?) or pay for the bigger home with the same view. If it's not so key, if money and space are more important, then you'll need to surrender your dream of an ocean view.

I cannot think of heavy-duty that I will add over the next year. Logic and iLife on the Mac and Office 2010 on the Windows partition is all I can think of. There are other utilities and programs that I will use, but these are all very lightweight.

That $500 price point for the move from 256 to 512GB is pretty scary. Especially when you consider what that same $500 can get you with external storage (multiple terabytes). I was faced with a similar situation when the offering was 128GB about moving to the 256GB solution and ultimately I decided against it and off loaded to external drives. Is that at all possible in your situation? You've mention how you're using the Mac said but you said that you wanted 100GB of space on the Windows side, for what exactly?

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